In a surprising change of direction, Google has decided not to get rid of third-party cookie support in Chrome. The cookies are small text files with information, set by websites and advertisers, and can be used to track users across the internet for personalisation and other purposes, some of which violate user privacy.
Google's vice president of its Privacy Sandbox initiative, Anthony Chavez, announced the change this week. Chavez used very careful language that suggests "everyone involved in online advertising" had resisted the effort to ditch third-party cookies.
Regulators worldwide had also been cold on third-party cookies going in Chrome, the world's most popular web browser.
Chavez mentioned "feedback from a variety of stakeholders" that include British watchdogs the Competition and Markets Authority and the Information Commissioner's Office as providing feedback on Google's effort to replace third-party cookies with application programming interfaces (APIs) under the Privacy Sandbox work.
Google had extended the grace period for deprecating third-party cookies, the most recent one being 60 days from 1 July this year.
The Privacy Sandbox initiative to remove third-party cookies, "to create technologies that both protect people's privacy online" while providing advertisers and web companies with the tools required to bring in revenue has been years in the making, but with slow progress.
In 2021 Google said more time was needed to phase out the cookies, which was originally set to happen from mid-2023 and be done over a three-month period. Again, Google referred to engagement with UK's CMA as the reason for the delay.
Now, Chavez said Google will bring in a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing; that choice can be adjusted at any time.
Chavez didn't outline what the new experience would look like, but said Google is discussing this new path with regulators and will engage with the industry over the rollout of the feature.
Meanwhile, Chavez said Google intends to continue to make the Privacy Sandbox APIs available for developers, and invest in them further to improve privacy and utility. Further privacy enhancements are also coming for Chrome, including the Internet Protocol (IP) address protection feature in Incognito mode to prevent tracking of users.
Due next year by default, IP Protection uses a two-hop privacy proxy that anonymises "qualifying" traffic; it hides users IP address from servers on the Internet, in a similar fashion to Apple's Hide My IP Address feature that's part of the iCloud+ subscription.
Apple is blocking third-party cookies in its Safari web browser by default, along with Mozilla with Firefox.
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